Avadon - Review @ Gear Diary

Role playing is expensive – this has been documented. For every branch that a developer throws into a dialogue tree they need to flesh out the entire plot ramifications, fill out the characters and dialogue and everything else. As a result there are two methods typically used – phantom branching and short-term branching. In short term branching you get to make choices, see their effect within a small section of the game and potentially have some mention of them later on, but ultimately all paths lead back to the same final battle with the same binary choice.
Phantom Branching is very common and simply fills your experience with choices you can make that seem to build out the type of character you are – you can make harsh statements or generous ones, greedy choices or selfless acts. But these games are built for a single playthrough and therefore even within that same quest everything always turns out the same. At most you’ll get some mention of the actions, but these are simply ‘fill in the blank’ statements with no far reaching impact.
So it is a breath of fresh air that you truly make changes and choices in Avadon. Make no mistake, since the main quest-line is linear as I said earlier you are headed on the same path to the same final confrontation, but as you make more and more choices in one direction or the other they add up, your reputation is altered and the world before you subtly shifts. It is wonderful to have a game so focused on your experience as a gamer.

Me too.
I've only played Nethergate and the first Avernum trilogy to any depth (i.e. finished or near), so it'll be nice to be able to get in on the ground floor of a Spiderweb series for once, while it's reasonably new.

— Proud leader of the Shit Games Liberation FrontAll your shit games are belong to us

I just discovered the world of Avernum this past year when I bought A6 and was blown away by it. It was that good and that says a lot coming from someone who earlier couldn't get past the graphics in previous Avernum's so never really gave them the chance.
Not many games are a day one purchase for me anymore but Avadon will be.

Excellent review. Can't wait to get Avadon - no need to wait for patches or a "complete pack" with all expansions and dlc nonsense like so many other RPGs these days…

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Originally Posted by magerette
I'm so tired of marketing hype, marketing slang, marketing priorities and general marketing BS that it tends to have the opposite effect on me. (Jaded is the word I'm looking for here.) I can't even read through a whole press release from any AAA title company without wanting to turn off my computer and learn to cross-stitch.

I've only played Geneforge 5. Was thinking to try Avernum. But I'll wait wait for this instead.
It looks great. The graphics seem to be slighty better than Gen5.
Anyway, this is will be a worthwhile buy.

Originally Posted by Al3xand3r
Hum, looks like this is planned for iphone/pad/pod touch release too… No wonder you can only have 3 party members and systems appear to have been made simpler…

I hope it's still good as it will be my first purchase from Spiderweb, I didn't really wanna start the other series since they have so many parts… Maybe I will another time though.

I don't mean to be combative over something that is your choice but this sort of thing drives me crazy. You imply this game has been streamlined but this is the one you're going to buy. What message would you expect Jeff to take from that?

This isn't aimed at you specifically but Avernum 6 and Geneforge 4/5 are fantastic games that look almost as good as this. Stop talking about Dragon Age 2 and the streamlining of the genre and go play one of the best party-based CRPGs released in years.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I don't mean to be combative over something that is your choice but this sort of thing drives me crazy. You imply this game has been streamlined but this is the one you're going to buy. What message would you expect Jeff to take from that?

This isn't aimed at you specifically but Avernum 6 and Geneforge 4/5 are fantastic games that look almost as good as this. Stop talking about Dragon Age 2 and the streamlining of the genre and go play one of the best party-based CRPGs released in years.

The other thing to be clear about - you will IN NO WAY think this game is aimed at iOS based on playing it on Mac or PC.

My wish from indie developers: Build a good, basic but versatile engine. Sell that with an adventure, like a module from old D&D days. An interesting, but relatively simple and self-contained adventure. Then sell updates which are more, newer modules. You can keep tweaking the engine and content as you do this. But then you don't have to build, develop and release the OMG EPIC 100hour+++ adventure full of bloat and filler. We are all only human. I personally think it's a ridiculous goal for small, independent developers to try to create epic, sprawling stories. Why try? Give us good content in sizes that make sense. I don't want to save the f*cking world when I play an indie game.

Again, a platform like the iPad is perfect for this kind of gaming model, to download updates and add-on content.